


Wherein Sulu Switches Captains

by kayliemalinza



Series: Rambleverse [37]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kayliemalinza's Rambleverse, Pike's Reclaimed Captaincy (Rambleverse Timeline), Sulu POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-20 14:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayliemalinza/pseuds/kayliemalinza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set directly after Pike returns as captain of Enterprise.</p><p>Teaser: Sulu hears his name wisping down the corridor. When he turns the corner, Kirk and newly reinstated Captain Pike are standing there, too gold and oddly soft against the slickness of the bulkheads. They pause suddenly in their conversation to look at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherein Sulu Switches Captains

Sulu hears his name wisping down the corridor. When he turns the corner, Kirk and newly reinstated Captain Pike are standing there, too gold and oddly soft against the slickness of the bulkheads. They pause suddenly in their conversation to look at him.

"Good afternoon, sirs," says Sulu.

They both nod, and Kirk turns to Pike. "Cat-like stealth," he says. "I told you so."

Pike doesn't smile, exactly, but the crinkles deepen at the corners of his eyes. "Lieutenant Sulu," he says. "We were just discussing you."

Sulu doesn't answer that. In a different situation he might have joked, 'Nothing bad, I hope' but Pike was Sulu's direct supervisor for a grand total of ten minutes and saw nothing but sloppiness and error from him. Sulu's belly still coils up in shame when he thinks about it.

Pike exchanges a glance with Kirk that Sulu cannot interpret. Kirk spoke highly of him, Sulu's sure, but Kirk has very few pilots to compare him to and Pike knows that. Pike tilts his head at Sulu, re-assessing, because he is a man who likes to form his own opinions. "I'd like to speak with you," he says. "Do you have a moment?"

"I'm due back from break," Sulu says, looking to Kirk. Kirk rules Beta shift now, sitting in the chair more easily than in past months. The sudden rise to captaincy was not altogether kind to him.

"We can spare you for a while longer," Kirk says, magnanimous. Pike may be captain again but Kirk has collected and claimed his personal crew. He still walks the corridors with purpose and trails his fingers thoughtfully around the switches on his chair. When he commands, the black of space is somehow glinting in the pupils of his eyes.

Kirk lifts his eyebrows at Sulu and says, "But I'd better get back up there, myself." He takes a step away before he remembers regulation and pauses, shoulders turned to Pike in a show of deference.

Pike nods, dismissing him. "Alert me when we reach the next system," he says.

"Yessir," Kirk answers and strides away, but not before squeezing a hand too familiarly above Pike's elbow.

"Walk with me," Pike says before Kirk has even disappeared into the turbolift. He doesn't speak for a few moments, heading straight aft to a less crowded passageway as Sulu falls into step beside him. Finally he says, "Lieutenant, you are aware that the incident with the _Narada_ left me temporarily disabled?" He glances over. He isn't gauging Sulu's reaction, just being polite.

"I am aware, yes sir," says Sulu. Ship scuttlebutt had been atypically tight-lipped on the subject, but Sulu attended the commendation and relief ceremony. The wheelchair and new rank of Admiral spoke volumes; no-one expected Pike to return to the field. Sulu resists the urge to look down because he already knows that Pike's stride is quick and measured. "You appear to have recovered completely," he says.

"I have not," says Pike. His tone would sound blunt if Sulu were not used to the necessary terseness of battle commands. "I was implanted with a bio-electrical impulse system which bypasses the damaged sections of my spinal cord." He gives Sulu another of his neutral glances. "The system requires frequent recalibration. I'll be a regular presence in Sickbay, despite Doctor McCoy's insistence that he is not a mechanic." The sly smile he gives is the same one he used to mock Sulu, all those months ago. Sulu is starting to realize that Captain Pike is often amused by his crew even though he doesn't cut them any slack.

Sulu frowns. Pike will be tethered to the ship; it's bad strategy to send a man to an alien planet when his legs are unreliable. "My condolences," he says tightly.

Pike halts, startled either by Sulu's odd choice of phrase or the anger coiled beneath it. Sulu is surprised, himself. He's served with and under Kirk, owes the man his life, even, but something about this is sour. Planetside heroics are the bread-and-butter of the career captain, but Kirk will gather all the glory while Pike stays aboard to do the paperwork. Sulu likes Kirk but now he seems like the mob lieutenant, serving at the boss's elbow because that's the perfect place from which to stage a coup.

Pike clears his throat and begins walking again. "I also need physical therapy to restore agility to my lower limbs. Commander Kirk tells me that your hand-to-hand combat experience is in fencing." Pike's expression is a close cousin of the one Kirk wore when Sulu admitted his specialty in the shuttle, like Sulu had no business volunteering to fight Romulans.

Sulu doesn't care. Few people on that ship had any business being there: all too green, or incapable of imagining the atrocity they faced. Pike was the only officer who had some idea of the danger and he strode to his possible death without a murmur. Sulu did the same because that is what honorable men do.

"Are you asking me to be your fencing partner, sir?" Sulu asks.

Pike huffs a laugh and shakes his head. "I'll need an instructor, first," he says. "But I'm a fairly quick learner. Think you can spare some time for your captain?" He says the title with a pregnant tone, perhaps probing Sulu's acceptance of it.

"Yessir," says Sulu before any doubt can set in. Kirk was his captain these past few months, but he was also in Sulu's year at the academy and that means something. Something goes cold in Sulu when he sees the man hold himself apart in the mess hall, skirting the edges of crowds before disappearing to his ready room.

Pike nods, and something clears in his eyes. "I'll have my yeoman contact you as soon as my schedule is settled," he says. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Dismissed."

Sulu salutes and hurries back to the bridge. Kirk cuts short his bridge-walking spiral and perches on the edge of the console when Sulu sits down. "So, are you going to give Pike some fencing lessons?" he asks. His eyes slit with good humor, bright and curved like planetary auroras.

"Sure am," says Sulu.

Kirk grins. "Great. I told him you were a good choice." He leans forward and says in a low tone, "Listen, I checked over your percentages from this morning and they were a little below your average. Everything ok?"

Sulu casts a disparaging look at his read-out display and, perhaps not coincidentally, his hands. He's been spending too many shifts with Chekov, thinking of everything in terms of physics and math; the curve of his thumb is shoddy, nothing like parabola. "Just a little sluggish today, I guess," he says. "I'll get them up by end of shift."

"Good man," says Kirk, and laughs when Sulu pokes him in the butt to make him move.


End file.
